“The entitlement crisis is real, and it is worse than you think.” So argue James Capretta and Yuval Levin in a recent cover story in The Weekly Standard. As they write, the CBO projects that under plausible assumptions, the government’s cumulative debt will grow from 78 percent of GDP this year to 148 percent in 2038 and to 210 percent of GDP in 2048 — and even a total repeal of last year’s tax cuts won’t come close to mitigating that rise. To discuss how deleterious this debt load will be for the United States, and what steps can be taken to prevent it, I am joined by my AEI colleague James Capretta.

James is a resident fellow and holds the Milton Friedman Chair at AEI, where he studies health care, entitlement, and US budgetary policy. An associate director at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2004, he was responsible for all health care, Social Security, welfare, and labor and education issues. You can download the episode by clicking the link above, and don’t forget to subscribe to my podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. Tell your friends, leave a review.

Previous episodes:

• Ep. 115: Meet the new NAFTA, same as the old NAFTA? — Political Economy Podcast with James Pethokoukis
• Ep. 114: Facts and falsehoods about the US labor market — Political Economy Podcast with James Pethokoukis
• Ep. 113: Our infinite desire for growth — Political Economy Podcast with James Pethokoukis
• Ep. 112: What happens when ideas become harder and harder to find — Political Economy Podcast with James Pethokoukis

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